


Skinship

by ShariDeschain



Series: Super dorks [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Super Sons (Comics), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Fluff, M/M, brother teasing, jon is a cutiepie and damian is a nerd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 11:50:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10277084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShariDeschain/pseuds/ShariDeschain
Summary: Skinship(n) bonding through physical contactOr, Damian has a crush and he doesn’t know how to deal with it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the COWT @ maridichallenge, prompt "Quel conforto che ha a che fare con te" ("That comfort that has something to do with you")

"Have you really never seen Pinocchio?", Jon asks, looking up at him from his lap.

Damian doesn't know how and when he managed to put his head there. It must’ve happened while he was busy arguing with Dick on why fourteen years old trained assassins should not be forced to watch Disney movies by their self appointed older brothers, or with Tim on who should be the one holding the popcorn bowl, or with Jason and his sideways jokes about _becoming a real boy_ \- which Damian didn’t really understood but offended him on a principle. (Movie nights always offers a wide variety of arguments).

“Have you really never seen a pillow?”, Damian mocks, looking down at him. “It doesn’t look like me, in case you were wondering.”

“Was not”, Jon answers with a smile.

Damian growls at him but doesn’t push him on the floor, and his lack of reaction earns him a curious glance from Tim, who’s currently sitting on the couch next to them, the bowl of popcorn in his hands and one of Kon’s long arm wrapped around his shoulders. Damian can feel the tips of his ears reddening under his brother’s stare, and he keeps his eyes fixed on the television screen while he waits for the teasing he knows is coming.

Surprisingly enough, Tim scrunches up the corners of his mouth in what could be described as a knowingly smile, but he doesn’t comment at all - which is kind of a first in Damian’s book, but he’s not going to question his fortune or Tim’s indisputable ulterior motives right now.

He settles back against the couch cushions and pretends to watch the animated nonsense along with Jon and their brothers, while in reality his attention keeps shifting on the solid weight of Jon’s head against his stomach and - a couple of minutes later, after Jon decides Damian’s definitely more comfortable than the couch itself - on the warm touch of Jon’s hands on his thighs.

Overall it’s not a displeasing feeling, and it’s not a totally improper contact either, but the unfamiliarity of the situation makes Damian too self-conscious about it.

Though, thinking about it, he shouldn’t be so surprised about Jon’s confidentiality. He learned long before tonight - and at his own expense - that Jon’s a very physical person with little to no regard altogether for such a basic concept as interpersonal distances.

And it’s not a new occurrence for him either, because even if most of his family members from both the Wayne and the Al Ghul side are immune to it, Grayson unfortunately suffers from the same disease and, to a lesser extent, Todd and Brown do too. They’ve all worn him out with hugs and hair ruffles and brotherly swats and many other unwanted displays of affection, so it’s not like Damian’s a total stranger to this whole touching business.

And it’s not even like he’s completely opposed or doesn’t care for it, quite the contrary actually - at least as far as Jon is involved. He just doesn’t understand why the touching must happen when they’re in front of other people. 

Family, he understands. Father hugging him in front of his brothers is embarrassing, but in a soft way, because even if there are different degrees of intimacy between all of them, there’s the unspoken but still very solid agreement that they belong to the same household, and therefore to one another (again, with very different levels of ownership between them because there’s no way Damian would allow Drake or Todd or Brown to treat him with the same familiarity Grayson’s very hardly earned from him through the years).

Friends, he _kind of_ understands. It took him a while to truly grab the concept of friendship altogether, but Colin and Maya helped a lot in rounding the corners of what it used to be, to him, only another word for minions. There are ties in friendships too, Damian’s learned, but they’re not as mutually mandatory as family ties are. You can claim a friend but then they have to choose if they want to claim you back or not, and they can also change their mind about it if you screw up. With friends, physical touch is of the brotherly kind - both Grayson-brotherly and Drake-brotherly, meaning that hugs and punches can both happen with the same person. (It’s a very complicate thing, having friends, and that’s why Damian has very few of them - they require a lot of time and maintenance, even more than pets).

Jon… Jon, he doesn’t understand at all. He thought he did, in the beginning, when all he wanted was a partner in crime - or in justice, as he repeatedly told to both Father and Superman to allay their concerns about him and Jon teaming up. But at some point their camaraderie changed into something else, something that’s more than friendship and less than family, and defining what, exactly, this new thing they have is it’s Damian’s current problem, because if he doesn’t have a name for it then he can’t do adequate researches to determine how whatever this is works and what its boundaries are. (And trust Jonathan Samuel Kent to make already complicated things even more complicated.)

“He always scared me when I was little”, the boy in question whispers, nodding at the screen and drawing Damian’s attention away from his metaphysical pondering and back on the television - and more precisely on the fat man with a black beard and a weird accent who’s currently occupying it.

“Why?”, he asks with a frown, after observing its ludicrous quips for a couple of seconds.

Jon only shrugs in response, but he curls up a little bit more in his lap and his fingers dig a little bit harder into the fabric of Damian’s cargo pants.

And it’s stupid, it’s totally stupid. 

The movie, the characters, the very idea that someone - even someone as soft and mellow as Jon - could ever be scared of fictitious, simple-minded and stereotyped villains from children's cartoon when there are so many real bad people in the world. And, of course, Jon is the stupidest thing of them all.

So there are really no good reasons for Damian to shift and drape an arm around Jon’s shoulder. There are no better reasons for Jon to fidget against him until he can actually reach back and take Damian’s hand in his own either. And there are definitely, absolutely no reasons _at all_ for Damian to allow Jon’s awkward and sticky fingers to entangle with his own.

It happens anyway. Obviously.

And then Jon looks up at him again and smiles, grateful and happy and _familiar_ , and for the split of a second, for an infinitesimal moment, for the longest, warmest instant of Damian’s night, well, it actually feels good.

Then, of course, he remembers that they’re not alone and that there’s no way his gesture went unnoticed by the others. Also, he knows he’s definitely blushing now, and he’s never been more grateful for the dim lights of the movie room.

He feels Tim and Kon’s eyes on them even before the damn clone boy reaches out his hand to give Damian’s hair a quick and good-hearted ruffle - an offense that in any other occasion would be washed in blood and kryptonite - and he knows, he simply _knows_ that Tim’s smiling again, that stupid, obnoxious smile that practically begs to meet Damian’s knuckles, but if he jumps on these idiots right now he’ll attract everyone’s attention and no, that’s not what he wants nor what they deserve. He’ll settle this later, when no Superboy will be able to act as an alien shield for Drake against his righteous fury, and as for Kon-El himself, Damian’s more than positive he’ll be able to get Jon to help subdue him too. 

Later.

For now he’ll just get comfortable, ignore everyone else’s opinion on a matter that doesn’t concern them in the first place and enjoy the rest of the night with the nice feeling of Jon’s hand in his own.

**Author's Note:**

> Anon prompt's on tumblr was _a damijon where damian is shy of public affection but do it anyway bc jon want it_ and... I'm not sure this is what they had in mind. Sorry.


End file.
